


thicker than thieves

by kathillards



Category: Power Rangers Operation Overdrive
Genre: Alternate Universe - Thieves, Multi, Pre-Heist, getting the team together, little bit darker than canon, past will/ronny
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-27
Updated: 2019-06-27
Packaged: 2020-05-20 16:25:20
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,448
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19380406
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kathillards/pseuds/kathillards
Summary: Will Aston works alone—until Ronny Robinson barrels back into his life and forces him onto a team.





	thicker than thieves

**Author's Note:**

  * For [valkyrierising](https://archiveofourown.org/users/valkyrierising/gifts).



> you know i can't resist a heist au. this is more pre-poly than anything else but i hope it's still cool! i love thiefs.  
> title credit to sir nicholas jonas of the jobros and his ill-fated love affair with (redacted) in 'trust'.

Will is used to coming home to an empty apartment.

It’s not as sad as it sounds. His apartment is pretty swanky for being in a not-so-great area of San Angeles—helps when you have the money to pay for a balcony and a voice-activated lights system and his very own Stormtrooper replica (which he moves in the events he brings a girl home.) And, in all honesty, it’s kind of peaceful to come home after a long day of work and ask the lights to open and not have to do anything else except collapse in his bed.

 _Especially_ after a day spent retrieving an object as immensely difficult as the Angel Grove Scepter (reportedly, it belonged to Rita Repulsa, but whether that’s true or not, nobody can say, except for the Power Rangers Museum which claims it is 100-percent authentic.)

So, after that long day and a _very_ successful retrieval of a creepy, green-glowing scepter for his mysterious client, he is very much looking forward to eating last night’s Thai take-out and going to sleep.

Unfortunately, it looks like fate has other plans for him.

“Hello, Will.”

He narrows his eyes at the figure sitting on his couch with her legs on his coffee table as though she belonged there. Tall, slim, dirty blonde hair and a smirk smug enough to rival his own.

“Ronny Robinson.”

“Long time, no see.” Ronny smiles sweetly at him. “I like what you’ve done with your hair.”

Will ignores this. “Get off my couch.”

Ronny ignores this just as easily. “Busy day?”

“Robinson, I swear to God, if you don’t get the fuck out of my apartment—”

“Are you still mad about last time?” she asks innocently.

Will scowls at her. “Have you considered that most people do not want to see a girl who slept with them and _robbed them_?”

“Well, forgive me, but you’re not exactly _most people_ ,” Ronny shoots back. His scowl deepens more at the fact that she’s correct. “And might I remind you, this entire apartment is full of stolen property. _Technically_ , I was only re-stealing, which is much less of a crime than actually stealing.”

“Not even a little bit true.”

“And,” she continues, getting to her feet and dangling something golden from her fingertips, “I come with a peace offering.”

Will stares at the watch. Hand-crafted, made with genuine 12k gold, and he had pickpocketed it right off the wrist of some poncy businessman who had been prancing around the North Side in his tailored silk suit. Will had been fifteen when he’d swiped that, and it had been his proudest possession until the day he met Ronny Robinson.

“What’s your catch?” he asks warily.

“Simply righting a wrong,” Ronny says, and tosses the watch to him. “I did feel bad, you know. My boss—well, let’s just say I don’t work for him anymore.”

Will turns the watch over in his hands, fingers reverent. “Oh? And who do you work for now? Someone else determined to fuck me over?”

“Actually, just the opposite.” Ronny nods at the scepter he’s laid down on his kitchen counter. “Someone who needs your help. _Our_ help, I should say.”

“And why would I ever agree to help you?”

Ronny bats her lashes at him.

“Try again,” says Will.

“It involves dangerous heists, subterfuge, and possibly seduction.”

“Hmm, tempting,” he says. “But I don’t work for cheap, honey. And you already gave me the watch back.”

Ronny smiles. “Did I?”

Will stares down at the watch, then back up at her. “It’s a fake.”

“Of course it is.” She flips her hair, entirely unapologetic. “Do you take me for an amateur? I thought you were smarter than this. Maybe I should go find a better thief—”

“There are no better thieves than me.”

“Maybe not, but there are people with other specialties.” Ronny grins, catlike. “In fact, that’s our first mission. Recruiting.”

“Uh, recruiting?” Will raises an eyebrow. “I work _alone_.”

“Not for this.” Ronny walks over to him, then sidesteps to touch the edge of the scepter with careful hands. Will watches her warily. “You have any idea how powerful this thing is?”

He eyes her. “Thought it was a fake.”

“I wish.” Ronny sighs. “And the guy you’re getting it for? Just a ‘collector’? Yeah, right. You have no idea how many evil people want to get their hands on this thing.”

“It’s not my business.”

“It’s everyone’s business!” Ronny snaps. “They could destroy the world with this thing! We’re trying to _save_ people here.”

Will leans closer to her and sneers. “I’m not really in the business of _saving_ people, Robinson.”

She pulls herself up high so they’re eye to eye, nose to nose. “I know your price.”

“Name it. And I’m not falling for the damn watch again.”

“I thought, people like you and me—all we want is money and pretty things.” Ronny’s lips twist in the semblance of a smile. “My boss thought differently. I guess he was right. Here’s what he found for you.”

She pulls a small black cube out of her pocket and presses a button on it. It lights up with a blue-silver hologram, hovering just between their faces. It’s a copy of a file—paperwork—about one Jeanine Aston, born 1964, died 1992—

“That’s my mother,” he says, and his voice comes out trembling. “How did you—”

Ronny clicks the hologram off. “There’s more. If you want it. My boss has ways of getting in government databases and other places.”

Will stares at the place where his mother’s information had been. “I’ve tried for years—I’ve hacked every computer I can find—”

“But you’re not a hacker.” Ronny smiles a little. “I know someone who is. Are you up for it?”

Will shakes himself. “I need to know the mission first before I agree.”

Ronny points at herself. “ _We_ gather up a team. Then we go meet our boss. And then we take that—” She points at the scepter. “—and any friends it has lying around the county and destroy them. And all without anyone nefarious finding out.”

He raises an eyebrow. “Anyone nefarious?”

Ronny shrugs. “You might be surprised. So, are you in?”

Will looks at the cube she’s still holding out to him. An actual peace offering this time. “Fine. But if we have to work with anyone more annoying than _you_ , I’m out.”

She grins. “That’s easy. There’s nobody more annoying than me.”

 

 

 

Dax Lo, he thinks, might come close, though.

“Hey, I know you,” says Dax around a mouthful of French fries when he and Ronny track him down in a bar on the other side of town. He’s surrounded by a group of friends, all of whom seem halfway to drunk already, even though it’s barely 9 p.m. The only thing that makes Dax stand out from the rabble is the fact that he looks completely sober, despite the glass of alcohol in front of him.

“You’re that—that guy—the one who stole from Reefside Tech, right? Man, they were so pissed about that,” Dax laughs at his own joke, then slides out of the booth, neatly displacing the girl next to him, and offers his hand. “Nice to meet you, I’m Dax.”

“I know who you are,” says Will, not bothering to accept the hand. “Stuntman turned conman. Nobody ever catches you because you make crazy escapes.”

Dax grins, irrepressible. “If you can’t do it with flash, don’t bother doing it at all. That’s what my dad always said.”

“Was he a stuntman, too?” Ronny asks curiously.

“No, he was a fisherman,” says Dax, completely blank. “You’re that race car driver, right? I thought you died.”

Will shoots her a look, and she grins.

“Well, it was a big explosion, but no, I didn’t die. Walk with us?”

The three of them head away from the rabble and the noise, out into the crisp night air. Will tugs his leather jacket around himself and wonders exactly how he had ended up teaming up with two of the most notoriously dramatic thieves in the business. He had a strict rule: never go looking for attention when you’re looking for jewels. Ronny and Dax seemed to have the complete opposite ethos.

“So what happened in the explosion?” Dax is asking Ronny, not even wearing a jacket over his blue t-shirt as he walks backward in front of them. “All the headlines were like, OMG, Ronny Robinson DEAD at twenty-one, and then nobody heard from you again, until…”

He glances significantly at Will, as if inviting him to share the joke. Will pretends not to notice.

“I’m hard to kill,” says Ronny, smirking. “And I had… a benefactor. Someone with the technology to make sure I survived. And that’s why I’m here.”

“Is that your boss?” Will asks her.

“No, actually, she’s way cooler than the boss,” Ronny smiles. “We gotta pick her up, too. Boss needs her skills. But anyway, Dax—we need your help. We have to conduct two heists and destroy several magical artifacts, and all before anyone notices they’re missing.”

“Oh, I’m in,” Dax says immediately. “What are the artifacts?”

Ronny ticks them off on her fingers. “Rita Repulsa’s scepter, already stolen thanks to this guy. Lord Zedd’s staff. And Astronema’s crown. The other two, we’re gonna need to track down.”

“Are you telling me you don’t even have leads yet?” Will asks incredulously.

“Relax,” Ronny says. “That’s what the team is for. Right, Dax?”

Dax grins at the two of them, his face haloed in the moonlight just behind him. “Sounds like fun.”

Will rather doubts this but decides to keep that to himself. He doesn’t need to ruin their night, not when they both seem so excited at the prospect of pulling off impossible heists in a team.

 

 

 

Ronny’s mysterious benefactor turns out to be… a college teacher. Will is decidedly unimpressed when they turn up at one of her classes the next day, lingering in the back until all the students disperse.

She’s tiny, first of all, barely comes up to his shoulders, and she’s dressed—exactly like a teacher would, he supposes, with a tucked-in blouse and a pencil skirt and heels. Prim and professional. There’s no way she’d ever be on a team of thieves.

He retains this impression all the way up until she takes them back to her office.

It’s—not a teacher’s office, is one way to put it. It might possibly pass for a science lab. It’s full of robotic parts and beeping electronics, schematics plastered over every wall, a whiteboard covered in equations. A small, fully functioning robot dog runs up to him and barks. But the most impressive thing is what she has floating on the center table—a Power Coin, glowing pink, suspended in mid-air by invisible beams of energy.

“Sorry, it’s a bit of a mess,” says Rose apologetically. “I wasn’t expecting visitors.”

“No way, is that an _original_ Power Coin?” Dax breathes, making a beeline for the object in question. Will trails behind him silently, trying not to make as much of a fuss. “How’d you get this?”

“Excavated it,” Rose says with a shrug. Ronny nudges her and she smiles. “Okay, I stole it from the excavation crew, but. Minor details.”

“So you _are_ a thief,” Will says.

“I prefer to consider myself a scientist.”

Will raises an eyebrow. “Scientists don’t steal. They share.”

“Not all scientists.” Rose’s smile turns a touch mocking. “ _Some_ of us don’t get the grants we ask for, so we have to take things into our own hands. And it’s not like they’ll miss it.”

Dax pokes a finger at the energy field surrounding the coin and gets zapped for his troubles. “Are you kidding?” he asks, nursing his finger. “It was _all_ over the news! Nobody could figure out where it went. Everyone thought maybe the Power Rangers had come back to take it.”

Rose rolls her eyes. “Please. All they’d do with it in their little government-funded labs is pore over it and takes notes for years and never come up with anything useful. It’s much better off here.”

“And what are you doing with it, exactly?”

“Renewable energy.” Rose points towards a cylinder of pink energy running from the table where the coin is floating all the way to another complicated device sitting on the next table over. “And some other stuff. But trust me, if this gets in the hands of the government, we’ll all be screwed.”

“That’s why we’re here,” says Ronny, who had been feeding what looked like metallic dog treats to the robot dog. “Will here managed to steal Rita Repulsa’s Scepter. We’ve got a few other items on our hitlist we were hoping you could help with.”

“What’s the prize?” asks Rose.

Will decides he likes her.

“How about helping save all of humanity from evil?” Ronny asks.

Rose fixes her a look. “Come on, Ronny. I know you don’t work for free, and you know I don’t either.”

Ronny pulls out a piece of paper from within her jacket pockets and hands it over to Rose.

Rose eyes widen. “You can’t be serious. That’s way too much money.”

“It’s an investment,” Ronny grins. “Boss thinks you have some great ideas, and you just need some help.”

“This is more than any grant ever,” says Rose. “This is more than—”

“Yeah, yeah, he’s richer than the Queen.” Ronny waves a hand. “Trust me. It’s worth it. You in?”

“Fine, but someone else is gonna have to let the school board know I’m taking a vacation,” Rose warns. “I am _not_ dealing with Superintendent Bitchy again.”

Will feels his lips twitch. “Superintendent Bitchy?”

“Her last name is Richie.” Rose smirks. “She’s still not happy about the time I convinced her students to replace all the fish in her aquarium with squid instead.”

Will decides he _really_ likes her.

 

 

 

The mansion Ronny takes them to is stately and gorgeous, with manicured lawns and a five-car garage, everything inside in pristine condition. Will’s fingers itch to swipe something, anything, even just a vase, as Ronny leads them down into the secret underground lair or wherever she’s leading them.

“How do we know you aren’t taking us to be murdered?” he asks.

It’s dark, but he can still feel her roll her eyes at him. “You don’t always have to be so pessimistic. _Sometimes_ I tell the truth. Like now.”

She flicks on the lights and he finds himself standing way too close to her accidentally. Will takes two large steps back and pretends to be absorbed in noticing the interior of this—definitely a secret underground lair.

Rose catches his eye, her look too thoughtful. “Did something happen with you two? It feels like one of you is about to trip a live wire every time you open your mouths.”

Will’s stomach lurches, but before he can betray himself by looking at Ronny, Dax pipes up to make it worse.

“Yeah, I noticed it all last night, too. I figured you were like, exes or something.” Dax glances between the two of them. “I mean… are you?”

“No,” says Will quickly. “Not exes. Not anything.”

Ronny exhales, but thankfully doesn’t say anything. “Can we focus? The boss said he’d be in by now—”

“Oh, Dad’s not coming,” says a new voice, and all four of them turn as one to find a boy, maybe a year younger than all of them, lounging in the swivel chair in front of the computers. He’s backlit by the eerie silver glow of the monitors, his face young and bright, wearing a red shirt and looking nothing at all like someone who’s supposed to be in a creepy secret underground lair.

Ronny stares at him. “He has a _son_?”

“Your knowledge of who we’re working for is inspiring,” Will hisses at her. “Who the fuck is this?”

The boy bounds up to his feet. “I’m Mack Hartford. Technically Mackenzie. But everyone calls me Mack.”

He sticks out a hand, but nobody takes it.

“No way,” says Dax in amazement. “Your boss is _Andrew Hartford_? The millionaire?”

“No wonder he had so much money,” says Rose, dawning realization in her voice.

Will doesn’t much care about who Andrew Hartford is. “ _Where_ is Andrew Hartford?” He aims this question at the boy—his son, Mack. “I assume you would know.”

“He’s sick.” Mack smirks. “I may have had Spencer put something in his tea. The point is, he’s not here—and I am.”

“That’s great, Mack,” says Ronny carefully. “But we need your dad. He has our mission.”

“Mm, no, I have your mission.” Mack picks up a folder on the desk and looks through it dramatically. “Will Aston, age twenty-four, born in St. Louis, Michigan, professional thief. Ronny Robinson, age twenty-four, born in New York, New York, professional race car driver turned thief. Dax Lo, age-twenty-four, born in San Angeles, professional stuntman turned thief. And Rose Ortiz, age twenty-four, born in Manila, the Philippines, college professor, part-time scientist, and part-time thief. Did I get that right?”

The four of them exchange looks.

“That’s just who we are,” Rose protests.

“Well, that’s not all it says.” Mack pulls out one paper from the file and displays it in front of them. “Our mission: to find and steal the remaining two objects of the Alliance of Evil’s Triumvirate: Lord Zedd’s Staff and Astronema’s Crown. And then to destroy them. And, if we’re being honest—since Dad never is—he wants you to find the Power Coins, too.”

“What does he need those for?” Will asks, at the same time as Ronny says, “ _Our_ mission?”

Mack grins at him. It’s a little like being stared at by a puppy excited to go outside and play. “Good question. I assume for their renewable energy and stable power source. And also because he’s a weirdo who likes to study these things. God, you don’t even wanna _know_ what happened with the Corona Aurora—”

“Mack,” interrupts Dax, with the air of someone about to ask a very serious question. “Is that… the new Kingdom Inquisition game?”

He points at a video game box sitting on a shelf behind Mack.

“Yeah,” Mack says, face brightening. “Dad got it for me. It’s in beta, it’s not out yet. Do you wanna play?”

Dax’s eyes are wider than saucer. “Uh, _yeah_.”

“Can we focus?” Rose asks. “Mack, what are you saying, exactly?”

“Oh, I thought that was obvious.” Mack folds up the file again and smiles at all four of them. “I’m coming on this mission. And Dad’s not gonna be awake for…hm, forty-eight hours? So we better hustle.”

“We can’t just take you along—” Ronny protests.

“Why not?” Mack fixes her an innocent look. “I mean, I’m the one who knows where to find the guy who set fire to your car in that race. Dad certainly doesn’t know that.”

Ronny blinks. “You do?”

“Yeah, and I know where your big brother is, too,” he says to Will, who jerks in surprise. “And Dax… you can play any of my video games you want.”

“I’m in,” says Dax immediately.

Rose crosses her arms. “What about me? Your father promised me a grant.”

“I can do you one better.” Mack reaches behind him, underneath the desk he’d been sitting at, and pulls out a small tiara set with jewels. His smile is smug when he tosses it to Rose. “Genuine artifact. _The_ Corona Aurora. And Dad doesn’t even know I took it.”

“This thing’s been lost for centuries,” Rose murmurs, turning it over in her hands. “How do I know it’s real?”

“You’ll just have to trust me.” Mack winks at her, then looks at the others. “So… how about it? Are we ready for a heist?”

“We don’t even know where Lord Zedd’s Staff is, though,” Will points out, crossing his arms. “Got an answer for that one, hotshot?”

“No,” admits Mack. “But I have a lead. You’d be surprised what people let slip around this city when they think you’re some bookworm who won’t pay attention to anything you say.”

In the glowing golden lights of the lair, Mack’s smile looks less innocent and more like a true, genuine career criminal. Will decides he kinda likes him, too.

“I’m in,” he says, shrugging at Ronny when she shoots him a look. “I mean, what have we got to lose?”

Mack beams and thrusts his hand out in a fist. “All for one?”

One by one, some more reluctantly than others, the four of them put their fists in with his.

“One for all!”


End file.
